WAR

the meeting. The issue he had raised remained dormant
for some time, but he had taken a stand that was to
prove very unpopular with the vanguard of the Re-
volution.

Barere has called the Girondins "the big children
of the Revolution". They were political Bohemians,
charming and colourful, but hardly fitted to guide the
nation through one of its greatest crises. The tempera-
mental difference between them and Robespierre is
especially illustrated by their respective attitudes to-
wards the red cap, which at about this time trans-
formed the streets of Paris into lanes of moving poppies.

The origin of the red cap is uncertain. Some claim
it to have been the ordinary headgear of the French
peasant, others, that of galley slaves. The Girondins
seized upon it as children upon a toy. Brissot cham-
pioned it in his paper "because it covers the head
without concealing it; because it heightens natural
grace and beauty; because it lends itself to all sorts
of embellishment". Robespierre—austere and serious,
with an almost Puritanical aversion for outward dis-
play—frowned upon it. "Some people would rather
wear a hundred red caps than do a single good action",
he grumbled. It is claimed that his prestige in Paris was
so great that, for a while at least, the red cap dis-
appeared as if by magic from the Paris streets after he
had pronounced against it.

One day, Dumouriez—the new Minister of Foreign
Affairs—came to attend a meeting of the Jacobins. He
was a stocky little man of fifty, brimful of vitality. His
appearance at the Club was an event. Never before had
a cabinet minister honoured the Jacobins with his
presence. And what an event it was when he appeared

149 L